Manuel Pellegrini: I’ve never felt that if I don’t win I’m out at Manchester City

In a passionate defence of his tenure at Manchester City, Manuel Pellegrini tells Sid Lowe about the club’s long-term vision, the need to ‘respect the game and the fans’, the problem with FFP and why he is James Milner’s No1 fan

‘If you say: “Are you content?” No I’m not. I’m not content because we’re not meeting my targets, not because of any [external] debate: “Will he go if he doesn’t win?” But the year’s not over, there’s a lot to fight for.’
Photograph: Paul Greenwood/BPI/Rex

Manuel Pellegrini: I’ve never felt that if I don’t win I’m out at Manchester City

In a passionate defence of his tenure at Manchester City, Manuel Pellegrini tells Sid Lowe about the club’s long-term vision, the need to ‘respect the game and the fans’, the problem with FFP and why he is James Milner’s No1 fan

Monday 16 March 2015 13.11 EDT
First published on Monday 16 March 2015 12.59 EDT

There is a moment near the end of this conversation with Manuel Pellegrini, when the tiny coffee cup on the table has long stood empty, in which he turns to his 14 seasons as a centre-back and things fall into place.

“It was such a long time ago,” he says. Yet as Pellegrini recalls his past self, the international who made 500 appearances for Universidad de Chile, there’s a glimpse of the origins that helps make sense of everything he has talked about for the past hour. Not just how he approaches perhaps the biggest game of his Manchester City career, against Barcelona on Wednesday night, and the pressure it brings, but his own personality. The identity that makes Pellegrini the manager he is, not the player he was.

Pellegrini, 61, graduated as a civil engineer in Santiago in 1979, six years after his football career began, and he was analytical and intelligent, determined “always to improve”, but he describes a defender defined by “aggressiveness”, “character” and “fight”. If that sounds different to his image now, that’s because it is. It’s also because that’s the way he wanted it. Age has not changed him; Pellegrini took a conscious decision to change himself.

That may sometimes draw some to conclude that he is less competitive than he is, perhaps even passive. There are occasional flashes of frustration, a simmering sense that achievements have gone unrecognised, right back to his playing days, and that the debate is skewed to favour more demonstrative managers. But Pellegrini thinks he not only chose the right path, he chose a necessary one. “I’ve changed my character 100%; if not, I could never have become a manager,” he says.

“At first, I made decisions based on emotion, when you have to take them calmly. When I made the transition from player to coach I evaluated myself and saw that I needed to improve my personality. I would fight with players – literally. I was 35 and you can’t be like that; you have young players to guide. You have to transmit calm. It’s not easy to slow your heart rate and maybe some see it as a flaw, passivity, but it’s among the best things I’ve done.”

It’s not always possible, of course, and bits of the other Pellegrini remain, like when he angrily accused the Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson of bias after last season’s defeat at the Camp Nou. “Very few times have I regretted something so much,” he admits. “You’re still immersed in the game, you explode. I behaved very badly, I was wrong and, anyway, that [lack of control] is exactly what I don’t want to transmit to my players. I’m proud of changing my character, transmitting calm instead of using other means.

Manuel Pellegrini says he had to change his character 100% to become a manager. Photograph: Joe Toth/BPI/Rex

“If you’re hysterical on the touchline – ‘We have to win or they’ll fire me, arghh!’ – then that [anxiety] reaches the players,” Pellegrini explains, growling his way through the impression of an angry manager. “I’ve no problem battling with a player, showing character; the image people have outside doesn’t always reflect what’s happening inside; and I’ve had confrontations when players don’t have my three non-negotiable qualities: respect, commitment and performance level. But it’s better to convince [than impose], better to be calm.”

In the face of the ultimate pressure, the threat of unemployment, keeping calm cannot be easy and Pellegrini can’t be unaware of the potential consequences of failure. After Saturday’s defeat at Burnley, the latest anaemic performance, City trail Chelsea by six points having played a game more. They’ve won three of 11 league games and face Barcelona knowing that by midnight on Wednesday their season could be virtually over. How much is control and how much is conviction is worth pondering but, before the sacking question is even finished, Pellegrini has answered: “That’s an external perception, which is totally different to how it’s seen on the inside.”

Really? “This is an absolutely solid project, carried out the right way. I’ve never felt that if I don’t win I’m out.”

Smuggled out of stadiums in Argentina, sentenced from the start at Real Madrid, Pellegrini has lived with pressure. “Any coach who’s managed a big club in Argentina can manage anywhere,” he says, a smile cracking across his face. “Here the pressure’s normal; there it’s life and death. In Madrid, it’s more political. But I’ve never felt afraid.”

So nor will you walk away? “No.”

“I have no sense whatsoever [that my job’s at risk],” Pellegrini continues. “Of course we want titles but the vision inside is different. We want development, constant improvement. You have to be able to say: ‘We’ve got better.’ Or: ‘What can we do to be better?’ And it’s not always sack the coach. Sometimes it’s reinforce the squad or bring in younger players. The way we work matters too. Not just in my case: Roberto [Mancini] didn’t continue, but not because one year he didn’t win anything. It’s not ‘lose and you’re out’.

“This isn’t a disastrous year: we’re second in the league, we played badly at the start of the Champions League group phase but then beat Bayern and won in Rome. In the league, there are 27 points left. Last year we were nine points behind Chelsea. We had games in hand, sure, but you have to win them. It’s not impossible for Chelsea to drop six points. [At one stage] last season, they were closer to winning the league than Liverpool.

“The Champions League is very important but it can’t be trastornante , it can’t distort everything. One bad game, one mistake, and you’re out. In Manchester United’s great era under Ferguson they only won two Champions Leagues, Real Madrid went 32 years without the European Cup … and they’re still Real Madrid. It’s important to reach the later rounds but you can’t think that not being there is a disaster, although with this squad you can’t get knocked out in the group.

“City went from not getting out the group to two years running getting through a group with Bayern and then being unlucky enough to get Barcelona. We can’t let that misfortune change our vision. And if we won it, it wouldn’t be ‘job done’. We’ve constructed the [Etihad] campus, [the owners] want to develop all areas, to aspire every season. And we don’t want to win the Champions League any way possible, booting the ball up the pitch, cheating …”

I would go out tonight...Manchester City fans display a banner aimed at manager Manuel Pellegrini. Photograph: Matt West/BPI/Rex

The Spanish coach Juanma Lillo once said that we value what ends well, not what is done well, symptomatic of a sick society. “Exactly,” Pellegrini nods.

In any case, he adds: “You can win it once that way, getting lucky, but repeated success requires foundations, a style. Winning trophies here is importantísmo, an obligation. You can’t finish fifth and just say: ‘We’ve got a [long term] project.’ But we have won: in the last four years this team has won two leagues, come second twice, and won the FA Cup and the Capital One Cup. I don’t think that’s bad. We’ve progressed in the Champions League, too.”

There’s a flash of pride, of vindication for a man who feels that his successes have not always been recognised, even as a player. “You can say I was a disaster, say it! But find me another disaster who played 500 games,” he says. “As a manager I won eight trophies in Chile, Ecuador and Argentina. In Spain, I’d taken Villarreal to league runners-up and the quarter-final and then semi‑final of the Champions League. Málaga finished fourth and reached the quarter-final of the Champions League. At Madrid, we broke the record [reaching 96 points, only for Barcelona to reach 99], but not winning the league was a thorn in my side; the conditions were there, although the atmosphere wasn’t right. My challenge was to join a big European team and win a title without compromising my ideas. We won the Capital One Cup, scored 156 goals, and won the league.”

Pellegrini knows that some see that as the league Liverpool lost, not the league City won. “And that’s absolutely unfair, for lots of reasons,” he says. “First, we were competing in lots of competitions: we won the Capital One Cup, winning every game; we reached the FA Cup quarter-final; we had the Champions League. Liverpool only had one competition, an enormous advantage.”

“[Steven] Gerrard’s slip? They lost 2-0, not 1-0. If they’d drawn that, we’d [still] have been two points ahead. Then they were winning 3-0 [against Crystal Palace] and drew 3-3. When we blew a lead in Cardiff, it was said that the team was bad. Where do people get the idea that they deserved it more? Competitions? We were in more. Goals for? We scored more. Goals against? We conceded fewer. Points? We had two points more and played I-don’t-know-how-many midweek games. I just don’t see it…”

Manuel Pellegrini has endured some frustrating moments this season as City struggle to defend their title. Photograph: Matt West/BPI/Rex

This annoys the City manager. “Muchísimo,” he admits. “I understand that Liverpool are more popular, that they have a great tradition and hadn’t won the title for years, that they have more English players, so people wanted them to win. But we beat them here, and [at Anfield] we lost 3-2 in a game with important refereeing mistakes. We didn’t say anything: we congratulated them and continued. There’s not one footballing reason to say they deserved it more”.

The English angle is interesting. Would you like to sign more Englishmen? “It’s important to have English players,” Pellegrini says, but he has a question of his own: “Can you sign them? To improve this squad, you’re talking players you can’t get. Let’s say [Luke] Shaw. £35m on a left‑back because he’s English? Can you get [Raheem] Sterling from Liverpool? Maybe if you go with £100m. [Gary] Cahill? Or [Frank] Lampard a few years ago? And if I want an Englishman in [David] Silva’s position, who is there?” There’s a long pause. “[Wayne] Rooney? Either they don’t exist or clubs won’t sell.

“When we won the Capital One Cup with no English players, it was everywhere. Arsenal won the FA Cup [with only Kieran Gibbs in the starting XI] and no-one said anything. Chelsea have two English regulars: [John] Terry and Cahill. United have more but only Rooney’s a [guaranteed] starter. Liverpool do, yes, which is why people wanted them to win the league.”

One Englishman City do have may not be there much longer. “The club wants [James] Milner to continue and he wants to stay but maybe he wants more games,” Pellegrini says of a player who has started only 13 of 29 in the league. “I understand. I’m Milner’s No1 fan. Find me a more complete English player. There are players who’re better technically, yes. Quicker players, yes. Players who head better, yes. But show me one who does all the things Milner does well. There isn’t one.

“It’s hard to leave him out. Respect, commitment and performance level: 10/10, fantastic. He’s polyfunctional: full-back – the only position he doesn’t like – attacking midfield, wide. I played him as a forward and the team averaged three goals a game. He gives everything. You leave him on the bench and he’s absolutely furious but watch him during the game: encouraging, shouting, supporting. And in the next training session he kills himself.

“Milner’s a phenomenon, a guy with big balls and a heart this big,” Pellegrini continues, opening out his hands. “Intelligent, great mentality, one of those players that when you leave him out you’re left with this feeling of injustice; it hurts because he should always play but sometimes you need a technical player with other characteristics. I hope he stays. If he doesn’t it will be because there’s an important offer.”

Other clubs could certainly afford him. More may be asked of City, their successes belittled by their benefactor, but Pellegrini describes that image too as “totally unfair”, believing some can’t digest their late arrival as a “big club”.

He doubts they can truly be called a “big club” yet anyway, portraying City as trying to catch clubs that have been “huge for years” and insisting that the gap is not so great.

A man in the crowd … Manuel Pellegrini watches his side in action against Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium. Photograph: Matt West/BPI/Rex

“This season,” he says, counting out the teams, “Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, have all spent much more than us. The squads are absolutely equal. Liverpool have [Philippe] Coutinho, Sterling, [Daniel] Sturridge, Gerrard, last year they had [Luis] Suárez and they bought six players this year. If you say ‘Southampton’, OK. But Tottenham, Liverpool, United, Arsenal, Chelsea, us … we can buy who we want and the difference in squads is minimal.”

Perhaps, but there’s no escaping the sense of decline and underachievement this year, the lack of the “progress” that Pellegrini signals as City’s true objective. “If you say: ‘Are you content?’ No I’m not,” he concedes. “I’m not content because we’re not meeting my targets, not because of any [external] debate: ‘Will he go if he doesn’t win?’ But the year’s not over, there’s a lot to fight for.”

The question is why City have declined after winning the league.

First, a caveat.

“I prefer not to offer reasons, because they sound like excuses and there’s no excuse,” Pellegrini says. But?

“ When you win something, if you don’t have that mentality that comes from a tradition of always winning, the built-in demands of a big club, there’s always a small dip.

“We brought Willy Caballero to give Joe Hart competition; Mangala, who’s 23 and will be an important player; Fernando because Javier García wanted to go; Sagna because Micah Richards was always injured. What we didn’t do was sign a crack [superstar].”

Would you have liked to? Pellegrini begins by responding: “Well, we have [Sergio] Agüero …” but the answer is yes. “The way it’s growing, I think this team needs a crack,” he says, emphasising the point: “We need a crack: that gives you a kind of ascendancy, status.”

But with financial fair play, that’s impossible? “Impossible. I find financial fair play hard to understand. It’s positive if it’s focused on avoiding someone buying a club and leaving it bankrupt, or preventing clubs running up huge debts they can’t meet. But it can’t focus on annual losses: if I have losses for three years but I know my business is going to be healthy in six, if I pay for that and have the guarantees, that’s my business decision. There are clubs with enormous debts; City have zero. Without [temporarily] indebting yourself one year, it’s hard to build. Instead of building in six years, it takes 14. Why?”

“Look,” he continues, “I was at Málaga, a club in debt, so I understand that you have to avoid clubs having unsustainable budgets, accumulating unpaid debts. But preventing you from investing, speculating, is absurd. It’s anti-competitive. In Spain you have clubs making €150m a year [from TV money], while others make €10m. Doesn’t that affect competition too? Or a shirt sponsor that pays a fortune while another pays less? The intentions are good, but FFP needs serious revision.”

So now what? Will there be a legal challenge? “The most important thing for City is that we stay within the limits of FFP, otherwise there’ll be punishment,” Pellegrini replies, “[but] there are people who think it’s unjust, fighting [legally] against it.”

Those are two reasons. When it comes to the Champions League, Pellegrini believes there are more reasons why City’s season is in the balance. The draw is one, of course, but there’s another factor – also felt by Chelsea in losing to PSG. Timing.

“This round is particularly difficult for English teams,” he explains. “These are very demanding months. Because of the number of games, because the intensity in England is very high and the pitches are heavy, you get there in less good shape. Not having a winter break gives other leagues’ teams an advantage.

“Boxing Day is non-negotiable, a wonderful tradition, and changing it would be absurd, but you can’t play nine games in December and nine in January. Stop at some point, play fewer games. Instead you have the FA Cup throughout January at the weekends, league games in midweek, playing every three days. It’s a heavy load.”

Whatever the reason, this match will probably define City’s season but despite the pressure, Pellegrini is calm and confident. That, at least, is the impression he gives at the start of the conversation, the reasons illuminated an hour later, the rain still falling on the training pitch outside. “The starting point is that it is possible to go to Barcelona and win. We have to have that mentality, our mentality,” he says.

Manuel Pellegrini is thrown into the air by his Manchester City team as they celebrate winning the Premier League trophy. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Reuters/Corbis

Despite the last two months? Despite the previous meetings with Barcelona? Three games, three defeats, remember. “Barcelona have a great team, spectacular players. No-one else can put together [Lionel] Messi, Neymar and Suárez. Add to that [Sergio] Busquets, Xavi, [Andrés] Iniesta, [Gerard] Piqué and [Javier] Mascherano, and it’s not a disgrace to get knocked out, but the results have distorted reality,” he says. “We’ve never played at our level against them, for various reasons. Principally, because of the sending-offs.

“Here [last season], it was absolutely even. [Martín] Demichelis was sent off and a penalty given: 1-0 down, a player fewer for 45 minutes. That distorts the game. We went there and played well, lost 2-1 and had a player sent off towards the end: [Pablo] Zabaleta. Here [this season] we were in our best moment, looking for the equaliser, playing well. We’d made four reasonably clear chances and then [Gaël] Clichy was sent off with 20 minutes [still] to go.

“I’m not questioning the referee,” Pellegrini adds. “Clichy was rightly sent off, Zabaleta was rightly sent off, Demichelis was outside the area but by two centimetres. It was acceptable. The issue is that we have to resist the pressure when that happens and stop it happening. You can talk tactics and technique but if you go a man down against Barcelona, you’re in a terrible position. It conditions the [whole] tie. It’s important we have the personality to play as we can, 11 against 11.”

When the draw was made Busquets admitted that Barcelona were initially disappointed, but soon concluded that they were facing a side that “let you play”. The obvious if simplistic conclusion then is don’t. Not necessarily, Pellegrini argues. Tactical naivety is invariably associated with attacking teams but being defensive can be equally naive and just as likely to fail. “We’ve tried to attack, except last year at home when we approached it differently, trying to stop Barcelona being Barcelona ... and that didn’t work,” Pellegrini says.

“If we just waited deep with 180 minutes to play, they’d create chances and we’re not a team [constructed] to play like that. We haven’t always played as I know we can; if we had done, playing our way, and it still wasn’t enough, then you can think: ‘Let’s change our style.’ But that hasn’t been the case. And our identity is to have a big-team mentality, to go to win. And now losing 2-1, we have to attack.

“Barcelona will want a slow game, we’ll want a fast one, but we have to be intelligent. They have no time pressure and the less haste you have, the fewer mistakes you make. We have to avoid being precipitate; we have to be calm. I always say to the players: have a hot heart and a cool head.”